


That Which They Defend

by ChibiSquirt



Category: The Goblin Emperor - Katherine Addison
Genre: Gen, M/M, Missing Scene, Yuletide, can be read as pre-slash or gen, deliberately written as ambiguous
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-16 11:53:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13053468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChibiSquirt/pseuds/ChibiSquirt
Summary: Missing scene:  Beshelar and Cala were sent off-shift after the attempt on the emperor's life.





	That Which They Defend

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tanyart](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tanyart/gifts).



> Dear Yuletide buddy,
> 
> Hopefully this is to your taste! When I first saw your prompt asking for them being supportive, I knew precisely what I wanted to do. I adore Deret (he's so *serious*!) and Cala (he's so *empathetic*!), so thank you for letting me write them together!
> 
> I deliberately kept their interaction ambiguous as to shippiness; they could either be good friends, or future lovers, and it would look the same, here. Title is from Tolkien: “I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.” 
> 
> Enjoy!

Deret’s mood improved considerably once he had shed his armor (oiled and cleaned, always, and on the stand before anything else was done).  Although it was not his usual policy, he agreed to let Zheru, the young man assigned to attend the First Nohecharei, clean his armor.  Deret’s arm was too sore for scrubbing, for one thing; and for another, it would take longer than usual to clean his armor tonight, because Zheru would have to get all the blood off it, too.

Zheru helped Deret himself, as well, offering him a robe in lieu of a nightshirt tonight—a practical solution to Deret’s difficulty in moving his arm over his head.  Kiru had, quietly, promised to seal the wound when they met in the morning, but she had advised him to let it be for the rest of the evening:  healings tired her, and she wished to be as alert as possible during her shift.  Deret had agreed immediately with her wisdom when she said it, but now, sitting on the edge of his bed with his wound throbbing too hard for the exhaustion to catch him and pull him down to sleep...  

He listened to Zheru scrubbing at his mail for three long, slow blinks, then stood.  Perhaps a cup of tea might help.

The apartments of the First Nohecharei were set up in a winged structure:  the entryway led directly to the sitting room, which in turn opened into a trim little dining room (never used) and thence to the kitchen.  The bedrooms flew off, one on each side of the dining room—one could see from the difference in width between the rooms how deep their closets weren’t—but the bedroom doors opened into the first room, the parlor.  Thus, to fetch his tea, Deret must walk from his room, through the sitting room, around the unused table, and into the kitchen itself.

He ascribed it to his pain and distraction that he failed to notice Cala until he had returned with his tray.  

It would have been fair and reasonable for Cala to decline his company for the rest of the night; certainly Deret would have understood a desire for quiet.  But Cala had evidently not made it even as far as Deret had, for he still wore his blue robe and sash of office, and carried the stenches of ozone and fear about him.  

It was a good reason to hesitate.  If Cala had been one of Deret’s men...  But Deret did not command anyone these days, and besides which, Cala’s temperament had always been more academic than martial.  With that in mind, Deret took a cautious step into the room, allowing the contents his tray to clink together as a warning.

Cala did not look up.

Sighing, Deret limped his way forward—his legs were uninjured, but his arm screamed with every step if he didn’t favor it—and set the tray on the elaborately-scrolled rosewood table before sinking with an undignified sigh of relief onto the overstuffed floral-embroidered couch.

Nohecharei were forbidden from siring children or passing their possessions on to any others; however, emperors had, over the years, given their nohecharei a multitude of presents out of gratitude for their services.  These presents were often sold for income or passed on directly—there were no rules about  _ giving  _ things to ones kin, merely against  _ bequeathing  _ them—but what remained were such a hodgepodge of styles, colors, and eras that the apartments of the First Nohechareis looked like nothing so much as an exceptionally shabby and out of date auction house.  

This couch, in particular, was embroidered with roses and poinsettias, and Deret felt like his own grandmother every time he sat upon it.  Tonight, however, he would speak no ill words about it so long as it served its purpose.  

He had positioned himself neatly on the opposite side of Cala from the tray, and it made a perfect excuse to ask, “Would you pass us the tea, please?”

Cala did not raise his head, but his eyes flicked towards Deret from behind his round spectacles.  After a moment of waiting—a long moment; Deret was just on the edge of reaching for the tray, himself—Cala raised his left hand towards the pot.  

It shook, his hand did, and rather badly, too:  Cala had no sooner reached for the empty cup than he had knocked it to the floor.  Thankfully, the teacup was silver, not porcelain—the tea set had been given to the nohecherei sometime before the Veradeise dynasty, presumably by some emperor who  _ never drank tea,  _ or else didn’t mind their bodyguards having burned hands _ — _ and although it clattered horridly, the little cup did not break.  

Cala’s eyes went wide, and his ears drooped as he turned towards Deret.

Deret resisted the urge to roll his eyes, nodding at the fallen cup instead.  “We have a hole in our arm,” he said dryly.   _ “We _ are not getting up to get it!”

Cala’s ears flattened, but he nodded, and a second later he was throwing his nest of blankets aside— _ why  _ were there so many lap-blankets in these apartments?!—to crouch beside the divan and retrieve the silver teacup.  

When he stood, he had clasped the cup with his hands wrapped in the long edges of his sleeves, as if to avoid touching it with his bare skin.  Deret observed this with a sinking heart, remembering the way Cala had shaken out his hands after Tehtimar was dead.  Cala poured the tea and set the cup in its saucer, then passed the whole tray over and stood before Deret, his eyes seeking out his bedroom door.

Deret sighed.  “Sit down,” he ordered firmly.

Cala’s eyes widened.  “We would prefer not to,” he said, voice creaking.  “We find ourself... overset.”  

His hands, still wrapped in their blue sleeves, clenched tightly into fists.  

“We are aware of that, but—” Deret paused to raise his tea to his lips, blowing on the hot surface to cool it.  Too hot; he set it back on the saucer, holding it carefully by the metal handle, “—we think you should not be alone right now;  _ please  _ sit.”

And, unable to muster the energy to protest more, Cala sat.

Deret promptly held out the saucer.  “Have a sip,” he ordered.  Cala’s ears flattened in response, an anger out of proportion to the order passing across his face.  

“I am not a child!” he blurted, then blushed a furious red at being belied so immediately by his slip into informality.  

Deret shook his head and seized on of Cala’s hands, wrapping his fingers around the saucer until he was sure it would not be dropped.  “I know it,” he said, deliberately matching the intimacy of tense, “for thou hast killed a man today, and that is not a childish thing to do.”

He was not astonished to see tears well up in Cala’s eyes, and discretely turned his gaze to the first on the other side of the room until the other had recovered.

After a minute, he heard the distinctive scrape of silver on silver—the cup moving in its saucer—and cleared his throat.  “Was that thy first?”

A hitching breath came from behind him, either at the question or the phrasing.  

“...Yes.”  Cala’s voice was small.

Deret nodded, still resolutely studying the fireplace.  He counted his breaths, slow and steady, and after ten he felt a soft touch on his arm.  Looking down, he saw Cala’s hand, still wrapped in its robe, resting against him, and Cala managed to summon a wobbly smile as he offered Deret the teacup.

Deret smiled and twisted, only to stop with a grimace.  He moved again, more carefully this time so as not to jostle his wound.  He accepted the saucer, and was just raising it to his lips when Cala asked, “Hast thou ever done it?”

He deliberately continued with his sip, focusing on the way the heat spread through him, the way the tea warmed him from the inside out no matter what they were talking about.  

The teacup landed in the saucer with a  _ clink.   _

“We have,” he said.  “We were assigned to the protection of a caravan going from Zhaö to Cetho; there were bandits, and we—”

_ —covered in blood and other fluids, sword slipping in his hand from the mess, bile rising in his throat because there was a man dead at his feet, a  _ young  _ dead man, a man who was—who  _ had been— _ barely older than he was— _

_ —smell of death all around him, and so much  _ noise,  _ a chaos of screams, men, women, horses— _

_ —he was going to be sick, he was going to— _

_ But the captain of the caravan’s guards had turned to him with approval, for all he was shaking so badly he feared he might fold.  The captain’s topknot bobbed absurdly, like some strange bird eating seeds one at a time, as he said— _

“We ‘distinguished ourself with honor.’  In fact, we proved ourself so truly that we were seconded to the Untheileneise guard.”  Deret raised the cup and takes another vicious sip.  “We have never liked wearing a top-knot since,” he added in a mutter.  

Cala blinked at him—Deret caught the movement out of the corner of his eye—and then sagged sideways, curling up against the back of the divan and bringing his knees to his chest like a child.  His hair, always just a little too curly for his plait, was well-abused tonight, and frizzed around his face like swirl of haggard mist.

“Our hands feel strange,” he admitted.  

Dreet cleared his throat and passed back the saucer, pointing to the side table.  When that was secured, he held out his palms and checked that his ears were up, curious and non-threatening.  “May we see them?”

Cala bit his lip, scrubbing his hands up and down against his robe.  He didn’t refuse, but neither did he place his hands in Deret’s.  

_ —cleaning the blood from his sword, hilt and blade, but by then the rag was soiled, too soiled, soaked through in fact, and all it did was smear more blood around, edging it beneath his fingernails.  He cleansed his hands as best he could at the first stream he encountered, but the blood was caked on by then, and it didn’t come clean, and it didn’t come clean, and it  _ didn’t,  _ and he— _

“Cala.  They are only hands; you will not hurt us.”  Deret gestured again, waiting for long moments as Cala stared at his palms.  

The blood had been washed from them completely; truly, there was no point in either of them acting soiled.

One might have expected that Cala would move slowly to touch him, but in fact that was not the case.  He hesitated, and hesitated some more, unmoving; but when he acted, it was decisive, and his movements were firm as he pressed his wrists into Deret’s palms.

Deret closed his fingers immediately—lest Cala pull back, mostly—and tugged slowly until Cala’s fingers were spread beneath his nose.  He peered at them, but they seemed no different from how they always did:  soft skin, untidily trimmed nails, skin reddened and breaking over the knuckles where the dust and harsh soaps had irritated it.  Deret sniffed, but there was no trace of the ozone he had scented when he first sat down; either it had been his imagination, or he had grown accustomed to the odor by now.  

But that gave Deret and idea, and he folded Cala’s hands together, tucking them into Cala’s lap and patting them three times quickly, the way his grandmother had tucked away her rising loaves of bread.  “Stay here,” he instructed, before levering himself to his feet and limping into his bedroom.  He was back quickly—or as quickly as a limping man could be—with a small jar clasped in his hand.

“Here,” he said, wincing when he tugged his wound in unscrewed the lid, “Let us tend th—let us tend to your hands.”  He coughed and glanced at the fire again as he held out his palms once more.

“We suppose it is foolishness,” Cala said, passing his fists over without delay this time, “this notion that death clings to them.  We must seem very childish, to you.”

Privately, Deret found it difficult to criticize too harshly while Cala was shaking so badly, but he suspected that saying so would touch off another round of meepishness.  So instead of speaking, he scooped up a coin-sized dollop of the liniment he used on pulled muscles, releasing its strong perfume of lemon and rosemary.  Underneath those scents, it was also redolent with grease and mint, both of which were rather awful, but neither of which were anything like blood.  Or ozone, for that matter.  

He rubbed it into Cala’s palm with one firm, smooth movement of his thumb, and then kept rubbing, massaging it into the skin and into the thick pad of muscle at the base of the hand.  

“Not childish,” he said eventually, watching his own hands spread greasy, lemony relaxation up each of Cala’s fingers.  “Well, for one thing—you are a maza, and so such a thing could well be truth.  If you were to declare that you hold death in your palms, we would not be so foolish as to argue.”  He made sure to massage at the pads of the fingers, where Cala so often accumulated ink from the books he read.  “No, we wouldn’t say childish.  In fact, we would be very surprised if any of the dachen’mazei knew what it was to kill.”  

He thought about it as he watched his own fingers move.  “...Perhaps Kiru,” he added as an afterthought.  “Other hand, please.”

Cala hiccuped, caught between laughter and indignation, and obediently swapped hands.  

“But there is this, too,” Deret continued, smiling wryly.  The liniment was nearly entirely spread, now, Cala’s hands shining with grease but no longer trembling.  “This is what is it, to be nohechareis.  To guard Edrehasivar is to swear you will kill for him, and you may be called upon to do so again, unless you decide that you can serve him no longe.  And we would think no less of you if that were your decision, Cala, for there is something unclean in killing—as you know yourself, now.”

It was the thought Deret had held when he stood in his captain’s office, hearing of this assignment for the first time.  Before he had known that Edrehasivar would be...  _ Edrehasivar.   _ Before he had even known the emperor would  _ be  _ Edrehasivar, and not Veranechibel VI; Maia, and not Idra, in other words, although he would never have been bold enough to phrase it that way.  

No, all Deret had known was that he had done well in command, and better in personal combat, and his reward was to be offered a death sentence of a position with duties which were neither command  _ nor  _ combat, for which he would be expected to be grateful.  And in which he would, almost certainly, be called upon to kill again, a practice which left him feeling dirty, for all he had made his peace with its inevitability.  

He was not sure, to this day, why he had accepted the post—but he knew perfectly well why he  _ kept  _ it.

He was not surprised in the least when Cala jerked his hand, now well-anointed, back out of his grasp.  “We could not,” Cala glared, his ears pointed straight back against his skull.  “We could  _ never.”   _

Deret held his hands up, palms out and shining fingers spread.  “No,” he agreed, “we could not.  Because we love him.”  

He shrugged.

It was the plural, not the formal.

Cala’s ears came up again even as his shoulders came down, and he tumbled forward, rolling over himself on the divan until Deret, astonished, held an armful of shaking maza.  But Cala was merely trembling, not sobbing, and Deret had spoken nothing but the truth, so he shifted his weight carefully, pulling Cala into his lap and away from his abused shoulder.  He used his foot to stretch for Cala’s lap-blanket and wrapped it around the both of them until Cala’s shivering stopped, and slowly started to unravel Cala’s hair from its braid.  

He let his head tip back against the ugly rose-and-poinsettia embroidery, fingers carding through thick white curls, while, in their useless metal teapot, the brew he had made slowly grew cold.

He didn’t need it, anyway; the morning, and their duty, would come soon enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Now that Yuletide authors have been revealed: Yes, this is my first piece in the TGE fandom! Hi! I write a lot of Marvel, but I had a lot of fun with this, so who knows? I may write more. (I have at least one idea for a ridiculous fluff story, so... maybe.) I'm on tumblr (chibisquirt.tumblr.com), and I'd love it if you came and said hi!


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